History of Us: Be Not Proud
by ajremix
Summary: History of Us Arc, set after Walking Ghosts. The gap between the world that is real and the world that isn't is a difficult space to bridge. Light, Roll, Slash
1. First: Discovery

Be Not Proud First: Discovery  
  
by Lady Virgo  
  
"Do not let  
fear  
Control  
your life."  
  
///  
  
So. He was the only one to mourn the passing. Oh well, how could you expect anything else? The world feared him, hated him for the fear he induced. And he fed off it, like some sort of parasite or psychotic maniac.  
Not saying that he /wasn't/- no. Stop it. That's your friend, you're not supposed to think that about your friends.  
Than again, friends don't try to attack you or kidnap your daughter.  
Cossack sighed at his old friend's grave. It was hardly a proper burial. Just sort of shoved the body- and its bits -into an iron... crate (didn't much resemble a coffin from the pictures in the news). The people dug a large hole in the ground, threw in the crate and without any pause for formalities- with the exception of a couple jesters singing "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead- Old Coot Mix" -filled the hole with cement. There was no marker on the paved ellipse, just flat nothing.  
That wasn't how Alfred wanted to be buried, Cossack thought. He didn't want to be forgotten or ignored, he hated that. He came from nothing, he refused to return to nothing. So many years of neglect and then suddenly plunged into the center of attention for his genius made him eccentric, vigorous, craving for attention as if to make up all that he had never received.  
Maybe he'd get someone to make a small statue for the cold grave. Just something to remind everyone of the history they had lived through, the history he had created and the legacy Cossack refused to forget- refused to let /them/ forget. So Wily /could/ live on as an infamous memory.  
He turned to walk back to the car, Kalinka waiting patiently, but irritably for her father. She loathed the idea of anyone paying respects to the man who threatened both her and her father's lives and stole away her childhood playmates to use as tools of war.  
But... what Cossack couldn't understand was: where was Thomas? What was he doing to keep him from saying farewell to his best friend and only enemy?  
  
///  
  
Dive roared uselessly against his bonds. Tiny automatons merely whirled as they reigned him. It had been easy bringing him in- easier than some of the Robot Master's contemporaries. Dr. Light had traced his signal to an alley where the large bioroid rested, still soaked in the blood of the neighborhood. After that, it was just a matter of stunning him and opening up circuits that allowed the automatons to forcibly drag him to Light's lab.  
Using reverse polarization on the live circuits created an electrical field and- with little tweaks –could form a sort of 'lasso', connecting the Robot Master to the tiny droids, as well as rendering the limbs the electronics controlled useless. The beauty, Thomas had found soon after the restraint's discovery, was not only did it bind the Robot Master quite nicely, the more they struggled, the stronger the bind became and the more energy the bioroid lost.  
Calmly, as if he wasn't being followed by a screaming, murderous robot, he led the way to an open, circular base. The automatons manipulated the unco-operating robot to the center as Dr. Light tapped on a nearby control panel. Hissing from the ceiling, a clear capsule descended around the Robot Master, cutting off the connection between him and the droids. With a snarl, Dive lunged at the sides, trying to burst his way out, the only things in his mind was destruction and the feel of blood between his fingers.  
The top of the capsule- a good meter above Dive's head –opened, a thick liquid pouring down the side, cascading around him and distorting his panicked form. It had a copper-esque hue to it, rich in nitrous oxide. Once it filled the tank, the Robot Master would be forced to inhale it, or wait until it seeped through his pores. Either way, it would counteract the Surge and sedate him. Even if the liquid didn't knock him out- as it did most bioroids that inhaled it straight –it would make him docile enough to allow the doctor to insert sedative carrying cables into his body and place a breathing mask on him. Though it would allow him to breath and talk normally without the liquid getting into his lungs, it would also regulate the level of adrenaline inside of him.  
The sounds of thrashing subsided in the capsule, Dive resting heavily against the side, unconscious, feet a bare presence on the base. Dr. Light let out an aged sigh. He turned to look at the other Robot Masters- six all together, he thought sadly –and walked out. The automatons whirled back to their corners until they were further needed. He sighed again, leaving the lab amongst the muffled jeering, curses and insults from the other capsules.  
  
///  
  
She wasn't there, but she could still hear it. She thought it was unfair in a way.  
This happened on almost a daily basis, ever since her father had gotten that strange e-mail. She could still remember it, the strange look in his eyes as he called them to his office. There were plans on the screen, she could see, but couldn't make them out.  
He had told them that the government wanted them to be destroyed. Rock, Roll, Rush, Auto, Beat, Tango. All of them. Roll tried not to gasp, tried not to tremble at the thought of being killed, just because of some madman's obsession with vengeance- or something of the like, she never understood. Rock though, he just hung his head and said nothing.  
The humans that he had fought so valiantly for, risked his life for, wanted him dead.  
He tried to hide his misted eyes from his father and sister, but she didn't need to see them. She knew they were there. She wondered if she could hate people for that pain they cased him. Hate them because they didn't care that he felt that pain.  
"But," Dr. Light said, putting a hand on Roll's shoulder, "there's another way."  
And he told them. Told them about the plans he had gotten, told them about Wily's last robot- a reploid, it was called –that was buried somewhere in the wreckage of his fortress. He told him about the creature he was creating, basing off those plans. Told them what would happen to Rock, that he would no longer be the same robot. He told them he would move Roll back to her first body (less advanced and smaller than the upgrade she had grown fond of- she didn't like the idea of being in the body of what looked like a ten year-old) and he would destroy the two shells and hand over the remains as 'proof of their demise'.  
"But.... The others....." Rock looked as if he were about to cry.  
Dr. Light shook his head. "I don't have a place to hide them. I don't have anywhere to put their minds."  
"Y-You're going to kill them?" Roll was aghast, mind unable to wrap around the idea.  
"I have to. There's no other way."  
Roll wanted to flee the room, but her legs didn't have the strength. Instead, she folded to the floor, crying at the thought of loosing her family and Rock bowed his head, weeping quietly.  
She didn't say anything after she was moved back into the smaller body. She didn't say anything when Rock was moved to his new brain, didn't say anything when their old bodies were destroyed along with their family's. She didn't say anything when Dr. Light began constructing the new body, seeing a skeleton of what was to be her brother.  
She didn't think she could ever think of him as 'Rock'. Her father seemed to agree, calling this his last creation, calling it 'Project X'. He had already gotten into the habit of calling the wire-frame body that. Roll didn't even want to think about it. She didn't want it to live. She just wanted her family back.  
Three days later, the first Robot Master came in. The next day, two more, then one for each day following. She didn't ask how he got them, or what he was going to do with them. She didn't want to get near them unless she had to, but she could still hear them and that was probably the worst part.  
Their cries would still ring in her ears and she couldn't get the screaming to stop. Barely two weeks- two /weeks/ passed Wily's death and the Robot Masters' sudden, vicious drop to an uncontrollable madness and Roll wished she was dead already. Not murdered or killed, or even really dead. Just... not here to hear those screams and echoes in her head. Just not there, like Rock wasn't.  
Slowly- because it was the only thing she had –she cleaned, sweeping the already immaculate floor. She couldn't go to the main house for fear of being seen and she wouldn't go near the labs. All she had was her room and the halls.  
It hurt too much. It was far too sad. But her tears were dried out, she told herself.  
But the tears always came back and she never tried to stop them.  
  
///  
  
The lights dimmed, then flickered. Scowling from his desk, Dr. Light looked around. "What the....?"  
There was a hum. Pleasant, mechanical and entirely too pleased with himself.  
"[Hello, doctor.]" The walls echoed at him. Light jumped.  
"Who.....?"  
"[Surprised? You weren't the only one.]" The voice chuckled at him, sounding painfully familiar. "[Still don't get it?]"  
"Elec...." The old man's eyes darted about, trying to pinpoint the robot.  
"[You can't see me so don't even try to.]"  
"Where are you?"  
"[Guess.]" His voice held the same odd-set humor the blonde bioroid was beginning to develop before he was stolen. "[You're a smart man. Where could I be that I can talk to you and see you in an enclosed room with no surveillance gear?]"  
It was then he noticed the echo. "In the wall?"  
"[Close. My voice is coming through the intercom. I can see you from your computer screen. I live in the very wires, where I truly rule.]"  
The wires? He's part of the data flow? "And how did you get there?"  
There was a chuckle from a mounted speaker. "[I don't really know, myself. One minute I was reading a book, the next I was tearing out someone's throat. And now I'm here. I'd like to see where I end up next, but I'm surprisingly more coherent now than I was two days ago.]" There was a grin in his voice. "[So I decided to see what your reaction to your dear friend's parting gift would be.]"  
Light frowned, not certain where this conversation was going.  
"[So this is your plan, is it? Sit around, gathering Robot Masters like collectibles?]"  
"What else am I supposed to do? Let them go around killing people? Have them kill each other until none of them are left?"  
"[You let your own creations die.]"  
Dr. Light frowned. "I had no choice."  
"[You did. You just didn't want to take it.]"  
"If I disobeyed, they would've been taken from me! They would've killed all of them!"  
He had the impression that Elec was twirling in his microcosm. "[And you wouldn't be able to steal Dr. Wily's ideas.]"  
"I am not stealing them!"  
"[You're dissecting them. The ones you've captured. You're trying to figure out how they tick because they're far more advanced than any of your designs.]" There was a light note in Elec's voice. "[And you're using the plans for that reploid. It's a good thing you can't get to any of his other ideas.]"  
Dim eyes narrowed at that. "What do you know of his ideas?"  
"[Because I have all his plans~!]" He practically sang. "[I've gathered all his blueprints, all his plans and I'm keeping them for myself, locked away in my 'head'. There's no other place that has them, no other person that knows them.]"  
"What are they?"  
"[As if I'd give them to you.]"  
"Why not? Are you that loyal to Wily? After everything he's done to you."  
"[And I should be loyal to you, is that it?]" There was an audible scowl in his voice. "[After all, you did so much more for us. You sent Rock out to kill us, after all.]"  
"It was for the best."  
"[Bullshit!]" Elec snapped. Several bulbs exploded somewhere. "[You didn't do anything for us! You didn't help us, you didn't save us; you let Rock fight and that was all! You condemned us to a monster- whose only thought was to create more monsters. You're no better than Wily, with all his thoughts for the 'bettering of the human race'. Thinking that the ones to make those decisions should sit back and let those that won't even have a part in a future they'd slave for take your abuse willingly. /That's/ why Wily was killed by his own creations! That's why you took Rock's mind apart and put only the bits /you/ cared about inside that new creature! No, I'll keep these secrets locked away. Until someone will use them with an honest purpose in mind. I don't care, so long as there's no more lies or double-edged words.]"  
Light narrowed his eyes. "I don't think you're in the best frame of mind to make that decision."  
"[And what frame of mind would you prefer me to be in? Yours?]"  
"So if someone said they wanted those plans for world domination, straight off the bat.....?"  
"[At least they're honest. You can trust someone that says things so straightforward, you know where you stand with people like that. If someone tried to claim some moral obligation to rule the world without saying they'd rule it- those are the ones you have to look out for. After all]," the voice grinned, "[look at Albert.]"  
"You....!"  
"[You don't need to worry. All of his most advanced ideas have never been created. The Stardroids and their fusions have been destroyed. The reploids are securely hidden. And the prototype beast and its brethren have been disposed of. That's all you need to worry about.]"  
"And I don't need to worry about you?"  
"[I exist only in these cables now. I have no need for anything material and commanding others was never one of the high points in my life. I don't need them, but I need a false-faced ruler even less.]"  
"Even if you do keep that as a promise, even something like you can't exist like that forever."  
"[I'll deteriorate, I know. I'm hoping I will, but I can keep these until someone appropriate comes along. And then, I'll die- a mindless stream of electricity, lost and merged with all the rest. But that's fine. Because, by all rights, the one thing I lived for had already been killed.]" The lights dimmed and Elec's voice was moving far away. "[And by extension, I'm already dead.]"  
  
///  
  
He should have known something was wrong from the very beginning. From the moment he was capture, Light should have known that he was planning something.  
It was far too easy. Being jumped by the automatons, being rendered defenseless, walking quietly to the lab. Barely a struggle, not more than a snarl at the beginning.  
Slash was designed to be as much a killing machine as anything else, it was the only thing he was programmed to do. No secondary purpose, just claws and fangs and the want to rip into something. And yet, he was obediently following the tiny robots with scarcely a frown.  
Dr. Light couldn't help a cold shiver, standing by the panel as the automatons maneuvered the compliant Robot Master into place. Gold-brown eyes flickered upward briefly at the sound of the capsule beginning its descent around him. The tinted sides lowered around his face and he gave Light a grin of teeth. The sides cut off the restraints between him and the little robots.  
The old man barely had time to widen his eyes before he realized Slash was no longer under the capsule.  
One of the automatons screeched like a taunt violin string, nails running up the strains and squealing and dying and violently being plucked until it broke. Even without the use of his arms, Slash howled in pleasure, smashing the thing with his feet and knees and tearing at the vulnerable wiring with his teeth. Fluids splashed against him, lighting up his eyes and turning his dark skin darker and coating his hair in thick liquid.  
He cut off the descending capsule with one hand, the other frantically indicating for the other robot to hold Slash off. Whirling, no concern for itself, the thing obliged. Slash made a face at the thing somewhere between distaste and wrinkling his nose. That thing wanted to ruin his fun and he hadn't had enough.  
The bioroid's eyes twisted at the sound of an opening door, settling with sadistic glee on Roll. She stood, trembling, feeling irreparably small under his gaze, unable to move. The dying scream pulled her inside the lab and the predator's smile held her hostage. She couldn't even make a sound as he bolted toward her, a roaring stream of points and blood.  
Air rushed around her face as Slash came to a stop a mere centimeter from her, maniacal grin on his face, madness in his eyes. Playfully, he snapped, teeth barely grazing the tip of her nose and Roll jerked back, falling over unstable knees and watching him standing over her as she trembled in his dominance. He just smiled that same deadly smile and let the automaton reign him once more.  
Slash walked back to his capsule, ducking beneath it and allowed the fluid to swirl around his ankles. He didn't fight the chemicals filling his body, didn't gag when the liquid filled his throat and the pressured built against his nostrils, ears and eyes. He just stood there, giving Dr. Light that maddening smile and the man knew that he was only keeping the Robot Master until he decided he wanted to leave.  
Shuddering, Light went to help his little daughter to her feet, hustling her quickly out of the room and away from those fiery gold eyes. Only dimly he realized that not one of the other Robot Masters had made a sound the entire time. 


	2. Second: Isolation

Be Not Proud Second: Isolation  
  
by Lady Virgo  
  
"Do not let  
anger  
Mold  
your fear."  
  
///  
  
Light knew better than to just advertise to the world that he had captured Robot Masters in his possession. Letting them know of their location and their current condition would be a sign, welcoming the military and the current anit-robot movement- better known as the Arcadians –to come in a kill them. It would also prove the amount of advanced automatons Light still had in his possession, as wells as Roll and his still working creation: X.  
But he would let it slip into public records that the particular ones he had in containment were no longer a threat. Be it they were torn apart by angry mobs, killed by another Robot Master or someone had found their remains among some wreckage. Light tried to keep tabs on which one of Wily's bioroids were causing the most problems, though many of those were hard for him to come by.  
Oddly enough though, he had come to find that Slash, one of the robots created solely for the act of battle had merely two records of killing in his memory banks. One Robot Master and one human. The one human that should have survived this ordeal unscathed: Albert Wily.  
Looking through the data, he thought that there had to be some sort of mistake. The Robot Masters all went into some sort of blind rage. They killed and destroyed without digression. Even the meeker bioroids lashed out with the call to blood.  
Yet, somehow, Slash seemed immune to that wild, untamed hunger. He was well in control of his own self, his mind didn't swim in thoughts of violence, in fact- according to data –he seemed calmer and less inclined to that blind rage than before- though that intensity, that much sanity made his viciousness seem even deadlier.  
Perhaps, thought Light, he actually /was/ immune to whatever virus Wily put into them. Perhaps there was something inside the robot that kept that virus from fulfilling its programming.  
Teething pulling at his lower lip, the doctor looked at his data and fell into a deep, unshakable thought.  
  
///  
  
Roll had gotten used to doing housework long ago. Not just because she was programmed to do so, but also because neither Light, Rock or Auto ever did any of it. On occasions they'd help out with spring cleaning or clearing out a table for dinner, maybe even help to wash the dishes. But it was also done with lots of prodding on Roll's end.  
But the one thing that she hated doing nowadays was laundry because it was the one thing that Rock willingly helped her with. Just one day, after she had taken the clothes out of the dryer, he offered to help and picked up one of their father's sweaters and just held it against him and sighed.  
When Roll asked, Rock just said, as if it was something anyone would do, that the warmth made him feel he was alive. He would always help fold the clothes, pausing every once in a while to hold the fading heat of the clothes against him and think maybe he was real. Roll didn't know if she envied his thoughts or not. She tired not to think about it then. It almost seemed impossible not to now. Now she would wait until all the warmth had left the clothes before she folded them, not wanting to hold onto them for too long for fear that she would be drawn into the painful memory again.  
She threw the recently dried laundry into a basket, leaving it on a table for her to get to later. And iron was kept nearby to press out any wrinkles that formed in the cooling clothing. As she waited for the heat to dissipate, Roll spent her time in the kitchen, fixing up some soup and a sandwich for her father. She knew the doctor rarely ate anymore- his thick waistline had already dwindled visibly –but she stilled cooked for him. Even if he had already died in his lab and was carried out by mourners and buried, she would still probably cook for him because she was supposed, because it had become habit.  
Roll wondered what would happen to her once she was no longer needed. Probably still going through the same motions she always had until her body collapsed and her mind would still run the lists of things that needed to be done and imagined she was doing until it sparked and broke, the brittle mind finally corroded under so many years without maintenance.  
But, she reasoned, she was needed now and she had best make do with that while she could. Who knew when her every purpose would be taken away from her.  
The thought frightened her and her grip tightened on the handle of the dipper. When the metal yelped under her hand, Roll tugged her fingers from the bent handle, switching to the other hand and continuing as if that painful thought hadn't just sliced through her body and made her want to fall to her knees in desperation and cry.  
Roll picked up the try and walked down to the lab. She buzzed her father on the number pad by the door and announced his lunch was ready before she placed it on the floor and left. She didn't like the lab, didn't like what it represented, what it meant with all those bodies that hung there like fossilized bugs.  
But that, like so many other things, she blocked out of her thoughts- memories she forced into a cage and cornered with other memories she had no use to remember.  
One such thought- surrounded by the others that hated it just as much as Roll did –wondered if that didn't make her as bad as any of those other humans.  
  
///  
  
He was dreaming again. He had to be.  
Everything now was nothing but a dream.  
He watched the world through a copper-tinted glass, watching as it passed around him. Sometimes he would dream nothing but a blank wall for hours on end. Sometimes he could see the face of that old man spasm and vomit blood over his hands. Sometimes he saw little Sierra smile up at him as innocent and naive to his true nature as she ever was. He hated it, the thing he had become. He knew he could blame that damned Rock and the old bastard all he wanted, but he was the one that allowed himself to become this beast, this incoherent animal he hated.  
His only solace was in his memories, but even they betrayed him eventually.  
When he thought about the good things in his life, his first thoughts went to his brother who did all he could to take care of him because no one else would. But every time he tried to conjure up Freeze's image, all he saw was his face, half blown off and just barely clinging to his endoskeleton. Wires hung out of his cheeks and out of his empty eyes, twitching out of reflex. When he actually managed to remember the pale face, smooth and submissive in his cold silver manner, all he saw was the tiny, timid smile, unable to look at his brother with emotions Slash couldn't understand. And then that smile would falter and disappear but that same submissiveness would never leave his eyes, nor would he look at any other point then the one too far off to see. His smooth brow would furrow and his skin would grow darker, until he began turning purple. His joints would bloat and gradually his hollowed cheeks would puff. Eyes bulged out of their sockets, still submissive in their grotesque misshapeness. Tears would come from his eyes, but they were thick and discolored. The same liquid would seep from his ears and his nose. Only then would he open his mouth and vomit the same thick fluids.  
Then, over Freeze's shoulder he could make out another shape. Smaller but glinting fangs and scales in the dark. Green eyes flashing with possessiveness, Snake would smile at Slash, venom dripping off his fangs, burning Freeze's neck when they splashed against his skin. The shorter bioroid would laugh because he had Freeze and there was nothing Slash could do to take them apart because they were always together in his nightmares.  
That was the second time he went insane.  
The first time was in the memories of that beautiful little girl, so trusting and unquestioning of her faith in a creature she couldn't see, didn't know and could never understand.  
Generally he would remember her as she normally looked with her hair in a braid and her nice little dress that her mother would meticulously clean for her. Then, sometimes, when Sierra looked at him, he could see her face melt on the polished white bone. Her arms would snap under his gaze and her skin would bubble and when he tried to hold her, gashes would appear where he touched her skin, cutting deep enough to tear jagged edges into her fragile bones. And he smelled it, the burning flesh and hair and even though all she would do was look up at him with blind eyes that melted and ran down her raw cheeks, he could still hear her screaming. And he could never save her and she would stand before him in her destroyed skeleton as if she were on display behind his eyes only.  
It was only after his mind was ravaged and decimated by those visions that the poison in his veins would talk to him. It calmed his fiery nerves and told him there was nothing he could do. All he was able to do now, it said, was to kill and survive or submit and die.  
He lived his life forever the servant of violence and that brought him nothing but pain. He couldn't protect the only ones he cared for, the only ones that trusted him and believed in him. There was nothing fighting could do that could make him happy. Except for maybe death. He suppressed that growing rage in his veins easily because his mind had already given up. It couldn't feed off his terror and anger any longer because the only thing he desired now was to die, it didn't matter by whose hands. The only ones he desired to see dead had already been killed, there was nothing left for him.  
So he would sit in the prison of his mind and watch his dreams pass and wait patiently until the world was finished with him.  
It wouldn't be long. He could feel it.  
  
///  
  
Two hours after she had dropped off her father's food, she no longer had anything to do. Worry tugged at the fringes of Roll's mind and she went back down that long stretch of corridor. And, just as she had thought, the lunch try still sat at the door, unchanged saved for the thin film of dust that occupied the lab as if it were a spa.  
Scowling at the microscopic intruders, she forced herself down the hall and picked up the tray. Then she took it back to the kitchen, spilling the platters into the disposal- to join the last two meals.  
As Roll washed the dishes, she frowned. This morning she had found Light's dinner sitting outside the door. She didn't think much of it. He didn't eat much at night anyway and when he pushed himself too far, would fall asleep at his workstation. Without so much of a shrug, she set his breakfast in place of the previous. Balancing it against her hip, she paged Light, letting him now his food was waiting for him. For a long moment, she received no response. Roll had narrowed her eyes, but said nothing. Perhaps he was still asleep. Slightly more wary, she took the untouched tray to the kitchen and disposed of the food.  
When she went to place his lunch outside the door, his breakfast was equally undisturbed.  
And now, two hours later, the food still sat and waited.  
No, Roll told herself. You have to go in. No more waiting around. He could be hurt, he may need help. Who else would help him? Everyone else is gone, you're the only one, now. No more blind eyes.  
She was proud of the way her fingers didn't tremble, even though her body felt as if it were trying to fold in on itself. She didn't understand why she feared this room so much. Before she merely felt a tinge of nervousness whenever she went into the labs. Now, with the Robot Masters hung suspended there- little butterflies, struggling against their pins –the thought of going in nearly brought her to her knees.  
Never before had she ever let a room fall into such a state- lived in, yet unlived in at the same time. Dust layered the tables almost half an inch thick, some dried chemicals were crusted into tables, burn marks tanning the walls from some long forgotten experiment. But the room was heavy with the stench of bodies. Sweating, feverish, the smell of a single- minded man on the brink of obsession impregnated the room with little ventilation and no windows.  
Forget it. She told herself. It has nothing to do with you, don't think about it. All she was here to do, she convinced herself, was to make sure her father was okay.  
She moved with tunnel vision, the capsule were just shapeless blobs of color, unfinished pieces of work gleaming lumps on the table. There was only one thing Roll would allow herself to recognize and that she found in a smaller room adjoining the lab. There, Dr. Light leaned against the edge of a table. Wires were crossing around him, hooking around the straight back of a chair. In the chair, pierced by wires, arms limp, chin at his collar and Light wrist deep in his head, Slash sat. Quiet, unresponsive, unconscious.  
Roll bit her lip, the skin in the triangle of shoulders, back and neck crawled, bunching and pinching at the sight. Hesitantly she cleared her throat.  
In surprise, Light looked up, magnifying glasses on his head. "Roll!" Though his eyes were bruised, rimmed purple and green, the old man didn't seem to feel any sort fatigue. "What are you doing here?"  
"You missed three meals." She said, wincing at the timid note in her voice. "I was worried."  
He shook his head, attention drawn back to the robot in front of him. "I'm sorry, I'm just really busy right now." He sighed, connecting and moving things. "I've lost all track of time."  
There was a pause before Roll got the courage to ask: "What are you doing?"  
"There's something wrong with Slash. I'm trying to figure out what it is."  
Roll fidgeted, deliberately looking around the hatch Light popped open on the back of Slash's head. "How do you know something's wrong him?"  
Gathering his tools, Light hooked his grounding clip before he placed a small screwdriver on one of the exposed circuits. Watching her fath- ....Watching him work like that made Roll uneasy. A reminder of things one wanted desperately forget. "Supposedly killed Albert. He's not a stupid man," he gave a pointed look and she let him continue uninterrupted, "he wouldn't have let his virus go around, working like it does without having some form of protection to himself. There must've been something wrong with Slash. Flawed wiring, corrupt circuits, something that allowed that to happen."  
He severed the motor lines that allowed the artificial brain to command the body. Then, with a fine point, began to prod at the memories that lay dormant before him.  
Roll jumped slightly when Slash's eyes snapped open. His gaze was focused on a spot no longer there and a terrifying, distorted cut of a smile was lashed across hi face, pupils dilated and, if not for the NO2 still pumping into him, she knew his eyes would be glowing like the frightening stare of the night.  
"I'll kill you. Damn bastard, for all the pain you put me through. I'll make you pay for what you did to me. What you did to her." Light frowned and prodded again, deeper. Slash's face morphed, eyes narrow, back to its steady amber gaze, expression in that harsh, serious set she knew by instinct. "Leave me alone. I don't care what he does, what any of them do." There was a pause and Slash's gaze slid away, thoughts spoken as clearly as words. "No.... Not anymore." Again that long needle moved, this time Slash's face crumpled into the most despairing expression Roll had ever known, voice hoarse and so full emotion. "I want to see you so badly. Sierra...." An odd look filtered subliminally across the scientist's face, standing behind the robot and Roll couldn't help but feel that he was tampering with something neither had any right to touch. The needle moved again.  
It surprised them both, the sudden wailing and screaming as Slash's head jerked around, trashing on a body sat stock still. His lips pulled back over teeth that seemed longer and sharper, fangs that gnashed and clenched. His eyes were wide, filled with more desperate rage and pain than any being should have to ever feel, matching thrumming loudly as it was suddenly struggling to keep up with the jump in Surge. Immediately Light twisted again and the noise abruptly stopped.  
"Personally, I don't really care who you tell." Slash said calmly, blood dribbling down his chin, red staining part of his lip and teeth. "But, since I know you won't leave me alone until I tell you, fine. The one who makes me happy is..." He smiled suddenly- not his dark or ironic smirk, but something truly content- and said, "a human.  
Dr. Light's wrist twisted, cutting off one memory and moved to prod at another when Roll suddenly grasped his hand.  
She was hesitant, he could tell, something about this bothering her. "What are you looking for?" She asked him. "What is this supposed to accomplish?"  
Gently, but with firm intent, he pulled his arm from her grasp. "If Slash is malfunctioning, I need to know why, when it happened, if maybe there's a way to stop it, and stop the other Robot Masters."  
"But it's a virus that Wily put in there." She didn't know why she was being belligerent, but it just seemed far too wrong to her, prodding through painful memories without permission. Light would never have done that to her or Rock or the others. Why was he doing this now?  
The old man shook his head. "No, there's something more to this, there's something in here that drove Slash beyond the blind rage controlling the others."  
"How do you-" She was cut off by a sharp look. Roll looked away.  
Light's face softened. "The reason why," he said softly, "is because I went through all the entries since the unleashing of the virus. From the media, from intelligence and from the Robot Masters we've captured. Slash is fully capable of killing thousands of people and most all of the other Robot Masters. But his records show he's only killed /maybe/ two Robot Masters and the only human he's attacked at all is Albert. I need to know why!"  
"But, Dr. Light-"  
"Dammit, Roll!" He suddenly snapped, eyes wild like lightening. "I need to understand /WHY/!"  
She stepped back, afraid, shocked. His face was desperate and it forced Roll to remember that, despite it all, Wily was still his dear friend. He had to know, he had to understand. Not as a scientist, not as the judge and jury in the court of bioroids, but as a person who had truly lost someone they always hoped beyond hope would return.  
He jabbed the needle in deep, frustrated and angry. Angry at the robot that defied its programming, frustrated at his own anger that controlled him. The point skidded and Slash opened his mouth, letting out a sharp squeal and static. His head suddenly dropped and Roll though, for a moment, that he was broken and her beloved father had killed him.  
Then, slowly, he lifted his head, face calm, peaceful, an amazingly easy smile on his lips that made him appear handsome. "I missed you." He told Roll. "It seems like so long, even though it wasn't. I like being around you, you make me feel calm, like I mean something." His gaze fell a bit. "It's kind of embarrassing, I guess. But I don't want to be some fierce creature always fighting. Around you, I just want to be there, to help you and be depended on. I want to be close, I want to protect you. If it's actually possible for a robot to feel this way about anyone, I'd say I love you. I want to be with you forever." Then, she realized as her mind wrenched, he was speaking from a memory. "Even if you're just a little girl, even if you are human, I never want to leave your side."  
It made her suddenly feel sick. This was his mind, his private thoughts. These were words he couldn't speak to anyone. She couldn't allow either of them to forces these precious memories out of him anymore.  
"Dr. Light," she said quietly, "please...."  
Rattled by the raw honesty in the robot's voice, he pulled the needle out, deactivating the memory and letting the robot's head fall to his chest. "Right...." he stuttered slightly. "We'll let him rest." 


	3. Third: Savior

Be Not Proud Third: Savior  
  
by Lady Virgo  
  
"Do not let  
pride  
Stroke  
your anger."  
  
///  
  
Her feet echoed noiselessly down the empty halls, darkened by the late hour to a blue-hued black. The broom's bristles scratched lightly at the fine polish on the floors, scattering the small dust-bunny habitat that had sprung up in the stretched room. It had been a while since she had last cleaned down the area, apprehension and a small price of fear keeping her away. But now she felt too restless. She needed something to do and cleaning always helped to clear her mind. /Actual/ cleaning, not just pretend where you think you see dust filming the glass of a picture or under the seat cushions. She had to find a large mess and fix it. Mild obsession with cleanliness perhaps, but it kept her occupied when it was needed and that's what she cared about.  
Besides, if she wasn't the one to clean.... like the doctor or Rock really would.  
But as she stepped into the underground lab, reinforced doors whooshing passed, acknowledging her clearance, her body tightened up. Seeing those Robot Masters in their tubes frightened her. Even the knowledge of their restraints didn't make her feel any better. But, determined she was, and with false bravado, set about cleaning, gradually, very, very gradually, sweeping her way towards the first of the tubes.  
Perhaps what had happened earlier had given her a sense of bravery. Though frightened as she was, Roll worried how Slash would fare after Light had gone through his memory. She was told that he may be slightly disoriented after the ordeal, but she had stayed and watched the clawed Robot Master, floating in his tube. Not once in the three hours she watched over him did he move. Not once did his eyes flutter and only by the monitors of the computer did she know he was even breathing.  
If Light found her in his lab at this hour, Roll wasn't certain what he would do to her. She wasn't certain of anything her 'father' did anymore. Her family, her brother, everything had changed and she was still trying to reorient herself to the way her world had suddenly turned.  
A part of her loved Light, but a part of her feared him. A part of her feared Slash, but a part of her worried for him, with his broken voice and his strength crumpling in his eyes.  
He heard her come in, opened his eyes as the doors closed behind her, shinning its bright red lighting as they locked. He saw the way she stood, determined but equally afraid, how her body tensed and shivered so very slightly. He watched as she clutched the broom handle to her chest, breath wobbling passed her quivering lips. She went about her business, cleaning, albeit gingerly, as if one of the Robot Masters would suddenly thrash against the tube's casing if she did anything. But something about the way that she moved, the way that she acted, even in an area she hated, he knew something was bothering her. All that time, trapped in a liquid prison with nothing to do but watch does wonders for one's observational skills.  
"Can't sleep?" He asked, voice rumbling through the air bubbles. She didn't appear to hear him, just kept sweeping. "Bad dream?" There was the slightest hint of a flinch in her shoulders. "If you want, I can listen."  
All she did was keep sweeping, but slowly, he noticed, she began to move her way towards him. Inside she scoffed that suddenly, as if he didn't know the true reason for her being there (he doesn't, she told herself, he doesn't know anything that had happened) and was worrying over /her/ instead. A few yards away, she stopped, broom held tight in her hands, head bowed.  
"Why do you want to know?" She asked, her voice soft, having trouble carrying through to his side.  
He looked at her with brown-dulled golden eyes. "Because, at the moment, I have nothing else to do."  
"If you were a better person," Roll said without conviction, "you wouldn't be there."  
"If you knew me, you wouldn't think what you do."  
She wanted to say that she did know, that he wasn't as horrible a monster as her father, as the people made him out to be. She thought maybe if someone as feared, even among his own ranks, as Slash could be someone that looked kindly upon a distant memory, perhaps there were others just as brutally misjudged.  
"Tell me." His voice was a soft rumble. "Maybe I can help."  
"Everything is a bad dream." She whispered. "All of it. It used to be nice. Tosan, Rock, Rush, Tango, Auto, Beat, even Blues when ever he was around... everyone was so happy and everything was so beautiful. And then... everything... everything just went to hell... Everything just turned into a bad dream."  
"I understand." But she didn't hear it as that. She could hear it in his voice, in the very depths of it, she could hear that he understood, that he wasn't saying it how everyone else said it, for the sake of being said.  
She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to hold herself from spilling. "I was built to help Rock. To do housework and keep Tosan from forgetting the world and to keep everyone in line. But now... Rock is gone, Rush is gone, Tango, Blues, Beat, Auto, everyone's gone . And Tosan... he won't listen to me anymore. He just works on that... thing in the back, and he checks on you. And because of Dr. Wily, everything is just so awful now. Everyone's attacking each other and they don't care that they hurting everyone else. All I can do is clean, but how much longer do I have until that's taken away from me, too? How long will it be until I fall to... to frightened humans or homicidal Robot Masters?  
"I...I don't have anything now. I have no purpose left in life." She looked up at him, eyes pleading. But he looked away, an echoing pain throbbing in his memories.  
"I'm the wrong person to ask for a reason to live." His past screamed their haunted cries ever louder in his ears. "I lost my most important people, I've killed the man that ruined my life, the other..." his hand clenched and unclenched, a stray air bubble blooming to the top of the tube. "The other is pretty much dead." He looked back at her eyes, as broken and needing as his. "I don't have anything left. I might as well be dead myself."  
"Don't say that." She said in a hush.  
In the CLP, he shrugged. "Everything's taken away from me. My purpose, my freedom. Put on display like some sort of dissected animal. The only thing I have to do here is just wait. And watch you."  
As he said that, she shrunk away slightly, an indescribable look on her face. "What do you mean, 'watch me'?"  
He shrugged again. "Like I said, not much else to do. And you're much nicer to look at than the old man."  
She couldn't help but to giggle a bit at that. Though still not entirely comfortable, she felt a bit more at ease. "I remember when you first came in... you were frightening." She shivered unconsciously. "And when you fought Rock, and the stories I've heard. You could've kept from being captured. Even now I'm surprised you're not trying to escape. All the others," she waved a hand around them, "have tried, but you never had. I'm amazed how calm you are."  
"NO2 is a very effective retardant against surges." He admitted. He cocked his head slightly at the sight of her yawning, failing to hide it. A strand of spiky hair floated in his view. "Are you feeling tired?"  
"A bit."  
"You better head off to bed."  
She shook her head. "No, I'm okay."  
His eyes seemed to take on an amused gleam. "You don't have to keep me company."  
"Who's keeping you company?" A thin smile formed over her lips. "I'm sweeping."  
"And you're doing a very good job of it, I see." He nodded to the broom where it rested against a computer panel.  
She watched him watch her, considering. "You don't... seem like a bad person." She said experimentally.  
"Perhaps I'm not."  
"But you scare people. I saw the way the other Robot Masters looked at you when you came in. When you were fighting. They were just as afraid as the rest of us. Why?"  
"Because maybe I am a bad person."  
"You said if I knew you, I wouldn't think that."  
"And what do you think?"  
She watched him again, as if the answer would come to her the more she stared at him. "...I don't know."  
"I don't know what I am either." He breathed, inclining his forehead against the tube siding. "Maybe that's my problem."  
"Maybe we're just our own problems."  
"Maybe we are."  
They looked away from each other in the silence. Their sense of loneliness grew, feeding off each other. Slowly, Roll stood to her feet, hand sliding on the familiar wood of the broom handle.  
"I should be going to bed."  
"Of course."  
She turned and placed a hand on the container. "Thank you for listening to me." As her hand lingered, he brought up his own, pierced with wires and tubes, and placed it over hers. "Good night, Slash." She turned around again, quietly shuffling out of the lab.  
He lightly caressed the tube, marveling at how small and fragile her finely constructed hand seemed against his large palm. "Good night. Sierra."  
  
///  
  
If Dr. Light was surprised that Roll had greeted him at the lab door, passing through it with him, he made no note. He checked each Robot Master in turned, did diagnostics on the monitoring systems before he left for the room locked away only for him. Where only his eyes worked on that strange creature that had swallowed what was left of her brother.  
In their tubes, the bioroids leered at her, but she ignored them. On occasions she'd glare at a particular remark, but continued her duty, cleaning the thick armor of dust. When one of them had gone too far with his harassing, Roll jabbed the thick point of her broom at the tube, connecting with a crack that had put the lab's sensors on a mild alert. She smirked to herself when the Robot Master jumped though no damage was done to the tube. The others let out partly intrigued, partly jesting hoots at the action. But afterward all of them just watched her silently.  
She stopped at the foot of Slash's tube, looking up at the towering robot. His eyes were closed and he looked to be asleep though the crease in his brow indicated the plagues his mind picked his sanity apart with. The tension in his face worried Roll, wishing she could talk with him once more though she didn't know what she could say. For a moment she wanted to be the one to smooth out the pain that dug permanent lines in his expression. Though he hadn't done much to guard her from her own nightmares, the mere thought that he cared was enough. And for a moment Roll wanted him to know that she did, as well.  
But his eyes remained closed, hair wrapping around him in their serpentine length.  
She shook her head and continued to sweep.  
In a detached way, Roll was actually happy in the lab, because she had something to do. If she forgot that her father was slaving over another robot, if she didn't notice the Robot Masters with their eyes tracing her movement, if she told herself the reason for this empty quiet was because everyone else had gone out of errands, she could think of this as any normal day.  
Subtly her hands tightened on the handle of the broom. Never had she wished so strongly then to go back to same, mundane routines that used to bore her so terribly. She remembered crying and complaining that there was nothing to do. Her father just chuckled and told her that there was plenty to do but she just said right back that it was boring. And Rock would look at her with wistful eyes and say he wished every day were like that day.  
She wished it were, now, too.  
Something in Roll's mind tugged at her, drawing her further into the world, pulling her awareness even wider around her. She could feel it, another set of eyes on her, cold and piercing, a thin veil that distorted a threat in mist. Slowly did she turn and suddenly all the other Robot Masters felt dangerously far away. The only things around her were the broom and the tube that housed Slash. The tube in which Slash looked down at her from, pinning her terror with the sword in his eye.  
Gone, somewhere, was the gentle warmth she never knew she needed. Gone was the friendliness, the support, the voice that told her someone cared and someone noticed her. Another part of her crumbled inside and Roll didn't know how much of her was left.  
"Slash....." She said softly, almost too afraid to step closer to him. "You...." everything she thought she could say to him tasted like dead ash on her tongue, ".....you're awake."  
His eyes narrowed somewhat, voice slightly muffled between the fluid in his mouth and the speaker that linked from the mask to the base of the tube. "What do you want?"  
"I-I wanted...." She bit her lip. "I wanted to see you."  
"What for?"  
"To thank you. For last night....."  
"Che." He snapped his head away, annoyance fed through to his very fibers. Roll felt like she was glass about to be shattered. "Don't be stupid. As if you haven't wasted enough of my time."  
Roll's jaw dropped. Before she could help it, she spluttered out, "What else are you going to do, trapped in there?"  
"Not having to deal with your babyish problems for one thing." He snapped back. A growl raised in the back of his throat. "Dealing with the nightmares is better than you."  
"How can you saw that? After-After what you said last night-"  
Slash cut in like three blades. "I said don't be stupid! Why the hell would I care what your problems are? I have plenty of my own to deal with, I don't need to baby sit /you/ while I'm in here."  
Roll's mind whirled, unable to comprehend what he was saying. Or rather, why he was saying it /now/ after the night before. "Why are you doing this?" She asked quietly, trying to ignore that her eyes were starting to sting. "You said-"  
"I didn't say anything. /You're/ the one that thinks 'I'm not a bad person'." He mocked. "You're the one that thinks that I'm just 'misunderstood' or that maybe I need a fucking hug but I /don't/." His hands clenched and flexed in pulses. The claws in his wrists poked out in the pause of every beat of her heart, just because he could do it. "I'm a killer, I'm a murderer. That's all I was ever meant more, that is my only purpose in life, that is the meaning of my existence. Find your own damn excuse to live because I'm not the one to give it to you."  
Roll's ears picked up a near inaudible crack, causing her to tear her gaze away from Slash. Her hands were starting to crush the broom handle in her fear. Somehow it was a little bit easier regaining her thoughts without looking at the clawed bioroid. "This..... This is the nightmare speaking, isn't it? You're like this because the pain is making you."  
"Maybe." Slash grinned. "Or maybe it was the memories that made me kind last night. Maybe I truly am a horrible person. Maybe I deserve to die. After all, I killed, haven't I? There wasn't one person who's died under these claws that I've ever thought about again- except maybe my wanting to kill them again." If it weren't for the mask Roll would've seen how full of sharp teeth his mouth was. "I even killed my own creator and I revel in his screams everyday. I've never felt such satisfaction in feeling his bones snap in my hands and watching his withered skin split open in front of me. His blood was vile, but at that time, there was no sweeter meat than his in on my tongue. And every time I remember, I want to tear in to him more and more."  
As he spoke Roll had backed away, unconsciously, imperceptibly. "Then why do you still hate?"  
"Because I /hate/," he growled out behind the breath mask, "your brother. I /despise/ him. If he weren't pretty much dead as it is, I'd rip him apart, bit by bit, with my own claws." His fingers tried to tear grips into the tube. "I'd flay his skin and tear his innards, bathe in his blood..." His eyes tried to glow its golden hue, but the NO2 fought it, tranqs pumping quicker into his system.  
Roll's breath came out in frightened huffs. "Y-You're mad. I can't believe I thought you were /nice/."  
He nodded to himself, and she could see the fanged grin under the mask. "Yes..." he hissed, "you should stick with your original conception."  
"I hate you."  
"You /fear/ me." Slash replied. "You fear me because of what you know, of what you saw in my battle with your brother. Because you know I killed Wily, because I /let/ Light take me, because I could escape if I so wished and kill everyone in this house. You fear me because at night, you dream of what I can do to you and you fear because you know I could do worse."  
"W-What would you know," she tried to defend defiantly, but feeling his words strike a chortling cord somewhere deep, "about what I feel?"  
"Enough to know that you hate yourself." He drawled out. "Because deep down, far, far down where you hide it away but it still eats away at you..." He pressed against the side, eyes boring into her very mind. "You want someone- you want /me/," her heart stopped, "to kill you."  
The look and command in his voice when Slash said it made Roll's blood freeze. She tried so hard to deny it, but something inside screamed at her, agreeing with each thing he said and didn't say.  
So instead of denying or confirming what he said, Roll turned and ran in fear and horror.  
And that was confirmation enough.  
  
///  
  
Nearly two weeks passed before Roll braved the lab once more. Or rather, pressured the lab into braving her. She strode with purpose, air around her holding the pressure of a storm about to break. She didn't take notice of the Robot Masters as they shrank into the corners of their tubes. She had her eye on something else. And she would not be swayed from her destination.  
Rapping the clear siding with the handle of her broom, Roll felt a twinge of satisfaction as the sharp noise jerked Slash out of what drowning dreams he found himself in that moment.  
For a stretched moment, he said nothing and they stared at each other, gauging. Then, finally he quietly said, "You're back." Roll could see the edge of his eyes crinkle, but she couldn't see what kind of smile he had under the mask.  
"Even if I do fear," she told him with strength in her conviction, "I will not fear you."  
A golden eyebrow rose at that. "Oh?"  
"I know what you can do to me. I know what you're capable of. And maybe that tube really can't hold you, but you're in there now. There's a reason for that. There's a reason that you put yourself in there." Her jaw clenched. "It's because you're afraid of yourself."  
Slash's lips pulled back in a thin grin, humorless but edged with a sort of satyr.  
"I don't have to be afraid of you," she continued, "because you won't bring yourself to hurt me. If you wanted to, you wouldn't be in there now."  
He shrugged. "I could just be bidding my time."  
Softly Roll shook her head. "What would be the point? If the only purpose of your existence is to kill, why would you spend your time here?"  
"Not every creature meant for killing wants only to kill."  
The sudden, soft contrition took Roll by surprise. Looking up at the tall bioroid before her she could peer unobtrusively into his face made up of nothing but tired lines.  
"But you have." Her once righteous anger was beginning to falter, but she still tried to cloak herself in it desperately. Because without it, she was just small and timid in his presence. "If you don't /want/ to kill, then why have you?"  
"Just because I had my reasons to doesn't mean I enjoy doing it." He bristled under her accusation. "Maybe I could've made a different choice, but this is the path laid out for me now. There's others out there I wouldn't mind tearing apart, but I'm tired of it. I'm here because I want something better in life than just killing, all right?"  
Roll watched him for a moment and turned away, broom gripped tightly in her hands. "I wish I could hope for something better in my life."  
"You should be glad you are what you are." Slash snarled. "You don't have to deal with this, day in and day out, with a foreign anger where you don't know where you begin. Or twisted memories that you can't tell apart from the present. Each day we have to live with our minds pulling itself apart by our own masochistic desires. No matter how much we try to stop it, how we try to deny it, it's taking apart our sanity bit by bit. Be glad you have what you do, because this isn't the sort of life people should be asking for."  
"Well no one /asked/ what I wanted! Maybe I do want someone to kill me! Maybe I wish I were killed with the rest of my family! Or that I was the one that was put into that body that'll sleep for God knows how long! Maybe I'd rather be kept in a tube with only thoughts and nightmares to entertain me! At least there I'd be safe! At least I wouldn't have to live, paranoid that one day I'll be found and torn apart by people that're too afraid to think straight! I /want/ to be saved! I /want/ to be killed! I just want some sort of certainty in my life! Father's too gone in his work to think about me, there's no one else that cares- I just.....," Roll put a hand to her face, trying to stifle a sob. "I just want to know if there's a purpose to my existence....."  
Abruptly, Slash's demeanor changed. "Sierra....."  
She pulled back, shaking her head. "Don't call me that." Both hands were to her face now. "I'm not her, don't call me that." That name wrenched at her heart and she couldn't understand why. It just hurt hearing him speak a memory's name as if it were her own. It seemed her entire existence had been forgotten by the world.  
"Have you ever thought," Slash's smooth baritone overrode the hysteria in Roll's head, "that I'm here for your sake?"  
Roll came to a halt, slowly turning back to the tube. "Wh-What do you mean?"  
"That I'm here to make you stronger."  
Her brow furrowed. "Stronger? What do you mean?" She asked again.  
In response, Slash tilted his head. "Would you have come into this lab for any other reason than to get upset at me? Or to make sure I was okay?"  
"I....." She tried to find words but the eluded her, angels off to find a better place. "You're here because you want me to gain strength? That..... That doesn't make sense."  
"Or maybe you're here for my sake."  
She tilted her head down, looking up at Slash through her bangs and confusion. "And what would that be?"  
He paused for a moment, then sighed, the bubbles rising as he let his head fall back and his eyes fall closed.  
And in that simple movement, the bubbles told her: "To save you." 


	4. Final: Liberation

Be Not Proud Final: Liberation  
  
by Lady Virgo  
  
"Do not let  
the past  
Guide  
your future."  
  
Life doesn't stay the same, she knew that. She understood it. For a long time, she wished it would hurry up and change. Now she wished it were back the way it was. Roll didn't know how to adapt without her family, she had never thought she'd be forced into that situation. She was a robot, after all, she didn't age. Any part of her that went obsolete could be upgraded, just as the rest of her family could. Even her father, who was mortal, she didn't think could die.  
And now she was thrust under the cold torrent of reality, truth splashed into her eyes until it stung and her tears blurred until she could see a world that was perfect. But every time she blinked that false world got swept away.  
Light was aging. He was old, he was getting weak. The time he spent with his new creation drained him of his vitality, not eating, not sleeping, not feeling the sky on his face. She could see him dying in front of her eyes and she blamed it all on that, that /robot/ that took away her brother.  
"Papa." She said quietly through the open door. She didn't stand in the room, or the doorway. She stood with her back to the wall, unable to look into the lab with that intruder lying on the table. "What will happen to us?"  
She was starting to forget what his voice sounded like.  
"When the reploid is complete, what will happen to us? What will you do with it? What will happen to the Robot Masters?" Roll's jaw shook minutely, but she clenched it tight. "When you leave, what will happen to me? You'll put that thing into the ground, you'll be put into the ground. The Robot Masters can't come out of their tubes, I know that, so what will happen to me? Will I just go on living alone? Am I just supposed to wander until I rust and crack and can't go on?"  
Still only silence pervaded. Quietly, so as not to break this mute world, Roll set the food on the floor and, hugging the cleared tray tightly to her, was left to her own devices.

Roll had often found herself wondering sometimes about what she was doing. Why she had latched onto Slash like she had. Everyday, every time something that shook her emotionally happened, she would always seek him out. She needed him to talk to her, to fill the cold emptiness that was growing so rapidly deep inside.  
"Slash?" She asked his still body. "Are you sleeping?"  
Two heartbeats passed and a voice replied just as quietly, "I never sleep these days. Sleeping means being faced with the truth."  
Her brow furrowed Roll asked, "What do you mean?"  
"The ones I couldn't protect. The ones I failed to save." Slash's hands twitched and he looked down at them. "I've killed so many people, just because I couldn't do anything."  
"I thought you claimed to be a killer. Why would you care about them?"  
He frowned behind the mask. "Because they didn't deserve to die."  
"And the ones you've killed? Did they deserve it, too?" Roll's eyes narrowed. "Does my brother deserve it?"  
Eyes the color of maple as the light shone through turned upon her. "If you knew what he's done to us, you'd agree as well."  
"You were threatening the world."  
"I don't care about the world." He suddenly snarled. "I care about the people he allowed to die. I care about the little girl in the park that should've had a fucking life!"  
Her breathing gasped inside her but Roll tensed under his words. "How dare you? Rock would never let anyone die!"  
"If that's true I wouldn't be so afraid to sleep." Slash hissed right back.  
Roll never had and never would understand why she had the need to talk to Slash. Most of the time their conversations ended with her wanting to cry and scream until she collapsed. Holding the empty tray in hand she fought the sudden urge to break something, just to crack the silence.  
"What's made you hollow this time?"  
Surprised, Roll jerked back to look at Slash. "What?"  
"What's made you hollow?" He repeated as mildly as he's ever spoken. "You've always been empty inside when you talk to me. What is it that's digging into you now?"  
She opened her mouth to say it was because she no longer mattered to anyone. But instead she asked, "Do you even know what you're saying? Do you even see how your attitude changes so drastically?"  
He grinned that ironic grin of his, the one that made Roll wary about whatever he was about to say. "I'm not as bipolar as you think I am. I know my moods, I know my words." The grin slipped slightly. "Granted it's hard to control them, but living as close to violence as long as I have, you learn to grip it and sway it the way you want to. Sometimes it hard to remember which part of this is nightmares and which part is real life."  
Roll held the tray close to her. "Are you going to stay in there forever?"  
"Maybe I should."  
"Are you?"  
Slowly Slash raised his eyes, looking at the other Robot Masters, willing the time away. "No."  
"What will you do when you leave?"  
"Die, probably."  
Brow furrowed in confusion she asked, "Why do you have to die? Surely there's something else you can live for."  
His eyes weren't unkind as he gazed back down to the girl. "You're one step away from losing everything, just like I have. Just like many other Robot Masters have. When everything that matters is suddenly taken away from you, it's hard to keep living. Some of us fight, just so we can die."  
"And what will happen to those like me? I can't fight but I don't want to die."  
"Leave." Slash said simply.  
"Leave?"  
"Don't think you're safe here from them."  
Roll's brow furrowed. "From who?"  
"The Robot Masters."  
She shook her head. "Why would they come here?"  
"It's not the ones that are out of control you should be worrying about." Slash said. "This virus that we've been infected with doesn't just fill us with uncontainable rage. Only some of them are. Others lose the will to fight, the will to live, some can no longer keep a hold of reality. Some are grounded too close to reality. But the ones you have to look out for," his eyes bore into hers, "are the ones consumed by hunger."  
"Hunger?"  
"There's a portion in our neurosystems that affects your moods. Causes heightened senses, suppresses depressants. To them it's the ultimate high."  
Roll's breath shuddered in her lungs. "They..... They /eat/ people's brains?" Slash shook his head.  
"Not people's. /Bioroid's/. And they've learned that banding together, they have better chances of bringing down the stronger Robot Masters. Until they're all whittled down and the urge becomes too great. Then they'll start attacking each other." Slowly he turned to look at the other Robot Masters. "We were all equipped with a sensor to tell each other's positions. With such a high concentration of us here, it'll only be a matter of time until they come."  
"Why didn't you tell us /before/!" Her eyes were wide, but Slash wouldn't look at her.  
He just sighed, long and low and his body was weary. "I'm so tired of fighting....."

The defenses of the house were more of alarms then anything else, though the sound of someone crashing around the house above drowned out the wailing. Roll, moving from one hall to the next, carrying a bottle of furniture polish, stopped and listened frightfully, wondering who it was that was attacking them. Two other doors separated the house and the hall she stood in. Another two rooms over was where the Robot Masters were being held, where the defense had to be manually activated.  
Slowly she inched backward, as if she would alert the intruders from that distance. As she the door toward the lab opened behind her, the door to the house fairly exploded /at/ her. Metallic whines and shrapnel ricochet down the hall. From the broken opening she could see Charge, pounding his fists together in triumph. At least two other Robot Masters were with him.  
Hiding a sound Roll fled through the door, spinning about to close and lock it before her but as she turned she saw vines flying toward her, sharp points crashing around the walls and floors. She couldn't help shrieking as the vines twisted, some of them sliding around her limbs, searching as she fell away from the lock. In a panic she scrabbled back, fleeing down the rest of the corridor with chortling bioroids following her.  
They were gaining on her, this body of hers not built to be very physically capable. Blindly the first thought that came to mind was to protect her father and, though she had no loyalty to that new creature, what was left of Rock. Roll barreled through the lab, hitting the codes that shut down access to Light's other lab. Hearing the faint swishing of metal locking together she let out a quivering breath, relieved that she could at least protect her father. As she began to hit the codes for a complete lock down hands clamped on her wrists, twisting them painfully behind her.  
Crying out, Roll tried to fall to her knees but her captors kept her up, forcing her to will strength to her legs. She was shoved against someone else, wrists freed. She saw it out of the corner of her eye, a thorned blade held to her neck. Fearfully she looked at her company: Charge, Flash, Plant and Sword, the four of them eyeing her hungrily.  
"Wh-What do you want with me?" She whimpered, afraid to even talk. Were they going to just kill her? Did they want to kill Dr. Light? Perhaps they were going to rape her or even eat through her brain, Roll didn't know which option was the worst.  
Flash, apparently the ringleader, peered at her contemplatively. "What shall we do with you?" He asked with a strange humor in his voice. The others chuckled like there was some clever joke that Roll had missed out on.  
"You're one of them, aren't you?" She asked, her voice stronger than she felt. In reply Plant pressed the point of the vine tighter against her neck.  
"Them?" Flash asked, motioning for the blade to be lowered just slightly. "Them who?"  
"You'll eat me."  
His face split into a full grin, eyes a bit too bright under his armor. "Well, yes, we are some of these 'AIP addicts' that've been going around. As to eating you, I don't really think it's worth it."  
"Not worth it?" She was more confused than frightened now. "What do you mean?"  
"The part that we consume, of course, is a portion of the AI processor." He chuckled darkly. "Those scientists are sure creative with their labels, aren't they? Bioroids created for various purposes and more abilities have a larger and more powerful processor. Someone like you, created for mundane house work, has such a small and weak processor that tearing you apart won't even be worth the effort." Flash tapped his chin and gave a little 'hmmm'. "And there, you see, is where we get out conundrum."  
"We can worry about her after she gets us our food." Plant corrected.  
"What do we need her for?" Bellowed the mountainous form of Charge, his voice caused the room to rumble as a volcano would a small island. "Just bust up the tubes and there we go!"  
Rolling his eyes, Flash turned to their fourth member. "Sword? You're the only one that hasn't expressed their opinion yet."  
Pressing his thin lips to an even thinner line the blade-armed robot said, "While I don't think she's very useful, we don't know how strong those tubes are. That, and if she's still here, it's fairly safe to assume that she's not the only one."  
Quirking a brow Flash asked, "You think there maybe more of Light's little defects around?"  
"Why would he keep something as useless as Roll? Most like Rock is around here as well."  
The other three grinned eerily. "And he'll be much more potent than her, I get it." Turning he placed a hand over Plant's forcing the vine flush against Roll's throat. "Scream pretty for us, little girl. Bring your dear brother out to meet us, huh?"  
The sound of unyielding fist caught their attention and the four Robot Masters turned to one of the tubes. Slash pulled back his fist, fighting the thick liquid and the NO2. The layers around his knuckles were beginning to split and the side of the tube was visibly straining under his blows.  
Flash grinned. "Oh, look. I think he's trying to tell us something."  
Plant rolled his eyes. "Just get rid of him."  
"Yeah, yeah. I got it." His grin turned more into a snarl as he leveled his blaster at Slash. "You've been a pain in the ass more times than we should've let you."  
The clawed bioroid ignored him, pounding against his cage. Roll's eyes were drawn to the growing crack, watching the fluids leak between the layers of siding. The high pitched whine of Flash's blaster brought her to herself. "NO!" She launched herself at the Enforcer, knocking his arm to the side.  
"Grrr, brat!" Shoving a hand in Roll's face he threw her to the floor. "Back off!" The smashing continued and Flash swung his arm back around. The fine cracks distorted Slash's face as he roared, the tube seemed the shake under his voice.  
The room shattered under the bright of Flash's attack and Roll let out a shriek as it rammed the tube, sending broken pieces scattering in the air, her hands horrified against her face. But Flash frowned, watching as the liquid sloshed to the floor in a great waterfall. From it was a figure, hunched and rising against the push of the cascade. Slash glared at the gathered Robot Masters through dripping bangs. His dark eyes flickered gold.  
Flash swore, raising his blaster up to charge again but the great lion already fell on him. Gripping the armored wrists tight, Slash tore at his throat with his teeth, sharp and glistening and thirsty. The material there, though sturdy, didn't stand up to the length of Slash's canines and as he ripped back nearly half of Flash's neck went with him.  
Gurgling oddly through bleeding, shocked lips, the Enforcer slumped to the floor, blood pooling around him.  
The others swore loudly, Plant nearly hysteric. Slash was unsteady on his feet. Months captive, floating nearly weightless the fibers in his body were unused to gravity and strain. Inside his body the mechanics whirled, trying to compensate for the sudden changes in physics, the NO2 in his body makings him limbs numb. It was only by pure force of will he was able to force his fingers to let Flash go before the body dragged him to the ground.  
Something jerked tightly against his throat, squeezing tight as more vines lashed across his body. "You fucking BASTARD!" Plant's eyes glowed as his vines scored angry gashes across Slash's body. "I'LL KILL YOU!"  
Charge turned to Sword, noticing his arms twitching for a fight. "C'mon." His voice rumbled like heavy coal-laden smoke. "No use getting' in the middle of a lover's revenge." He spat ironically. "Let's just get to the feast." After a moment's thought, Sword nodded.  
As they approached the closest tube (Centaur tried to press against the other side as best he could) the doors slammed shut, double shielded as the sirens blared. And the tubes, Robot Masters huddled frightfully inside, were encased in the same reinforced metal. The invaders howled in rage and turned to Roll as she stood by the control panels. Glaring defiantly at them she raised the tray (food and dishes swept off, shattered against the floor) and brought the edge down against the panels, smashing them until they were twisted and unmanageable.  
Roaring, Charge raced for her, his giant hands wide and seeking. "Bitch!" He shrieked. "I'll swallow you whole!"  
Slash pulled at the vines, trying to gain some sense of freedom. He tore with his hands and teeth, adrenaline trying to flush the rest of the NO2 from his system. His numb hands slid along Charge's hide and stuck against the edges of his armor, a vice that jerked the large bioroid to a stand still once Plant's vines reached their length. Roll's legs gave out on her, almost too afraid to even tremble.  
Charge turned his thick body, glaring at the insect that dared to keep him held. His treads wailed, moving even faster and something in Slash's shoulders began to slide out of place. "Lemme go!" He bellowed, great hand squeezing Slash's skull.  
"I... won't..!"  
"Dammit, Sword, get 'im off me!"  
Gray eyes flashing, Sword flittered to where Slash stretched prone, keeping the raging train-robot still as Plant's veins tried to pull him apart. Roll shrieked as the blade wielding Robot Master sunk his edge deep into Slash's side.  
He grimaced, but not a sound escaped his thin lips, fangs pulled into a gnashing snarl. Sword pulled back, preparing for another stab at the prone Robot Master.  
She sat, shivering, too afraid to move. Slash was perfectly capable of fending off the attack even with just one arm, but to do so he'd have to loosen his grip on Charge, allowing him to run down Roll. Something he wasn't going to let happen. Ever.  
Another blow landed, this time hacking beneath his left shoulder blade, sending electric arcs down his arm. Charge began to shift out of his grip. Slash's eyes widened and he let out a loud growl, diverting all but minimal power from his left arm to his right, grip tightening until he crushed a handhold in Charge's side.  
Slash tried to focus through the pain and the numb and, inch by painfully slow inch, his claws surfaced from the slits in his wrist. He lashed out with his bladed hand, though now too weak to do much damage. And as his hand snapped against the blade...  
His claws shattered.  
Sword's eyes went wide as he chortled darkly, raising his weapon in a downward thrust, preparing to sever his spine. As the sword came down, Slash palmed the blade away, tearing open his hand as the sword went through his side.  
He roared defiantly, even when Plant and Charge pulled against him, the ripped epidermal layer tearing like fabric under the pressure.  
Until a sharp blade sliced through one of Plant's vines, releasing one of Slash's legs. He brought his foot around, smashing it over the crest of Sword's knee cap, then, in an amazing display of flexibility and precision, kicked his toes into the soft part of Sword's throat, making him stagger back, gagging.  
Using his freed leg as leverage, Slash pushed himself closer to Charge, angling his wrist so when he popped his claws (the call more desperate and powerful), they tore through the hole his hand had made, twisting through the wires.  
As the larger Robot Master reared back in pain, Slash severed the other vines and crawled up his broad back, steadying himself on his shoulders and drove his clawed fist elbow deep into Charge's eyes. Shrapnel and sparks burned his arm, coating it in blood that was partially not his own.  
With feline dexterity, he flipped over the enraged strike from Sword who had recovered from the choke strike.  
Sword was fast, his attacks as quick and unpredictable as lightening. But to Slash, sinking into a subconscious state that could only be labeled as animalistic, each move was as obvious as if he had choreographed them in his mind.  
He stopped and let the sword thunk into his dead arm, caught between the plating and the endoskeleton. Slash wrapped his injured arm around the blade and twisted his body away sharply, dislocating Sword's shoulder with a fist he held against the junction of the arm to his body. He gripped the other Robot Master's face with tight fingers, digging into the weak crevices brutally before, with a strength he had become infamous for, he smashed Sword's head across the ground.  
When he turned to Plant his pupils were nearly lost in the glow of the yellow-gold eyes. Plant held Roll in the air, struggling, the large kitchen knife she had used to attack the herbivorous Robot Master had clattered uselessly from her startled fingers.  
Slash growled and the two stood there in a viscous stalemate.  
At that moment, Plant's body was just as immersed in surge as Slash's was. His own agility, speed and power was nothing to be laughed at, his, versatility making him a deadly opponent and with his pain receptors blocked and body capable of handling any movement he wished- undamaged like Slash's wasn't -there was a very good chance that Plant could have won the fight. After all, he had nothing left to lose and he was ready to risk it all. Slash had something still important to him, and he would give up everything for it.  
And that made all the difference.  
Without a warning, at a speed difficult to follow, Slash bolted forward, rumbling deep in his throat, eyes burning the white-gold of the sun. Plant's face formed around the demented, sneering grin, a disturbing sight to be seen on his androgynous face. His own eyes echoed colorless red. His free hand whipped forward, just as Slash got into his range, too fast for even him to avoid. A half dozen thorned vines pierced into his body, his thigh, shoulders, chest, arm. He sneered as blood soaked his already burgundy drenched clothes. Plant's eyes and grin grew larger.  
"Fool."  
On his silent command, the vines that twined in the air pulled at Roll's arms, legs, hair and she screamed, more out of fear than pain.  
With an enraged roar, Slash charged Plant, whipping his claw and tearing through the vines. Plant, sensing his obviously murderous intent, retracted his weapon. And with a defiant smirk, reared back and threw Roll in the opposite direction.  
Slash barely even paused to consciously realize what had happened. Instead instinct, in full control, sent him dashing in the other direction, leaping to his fullest like the king of beast he was, and caught Roll in his arms.  
He landed somewhat heavily on his severally wounded leg and went down on his knee. Where Plant speared him from behind.  
Roll let out a strangled cry, four vine tips protruding from out his chest. Tears lined her horrified eyes and Slash just looked at her sorrowfully. He had gone through too much, been surged for too long. Too much blood had been lost and his body was beginning to slow down. Though his pain receptors were permanently damaged, he could feel the weakness and disconnectedness from his wounds, how it impaired him and all he could do was let out a bloody spit, breath gurgling in his lungs as they began to fill with liquid.  
Roll's hands covered her mouth in wide-eyed terror. "Oh my God... Slash..."  
He just gently sat her on the ground, she thought she saw his lips form out 'sorry', but it could have been light glinting off his scarlet mouth. Turning, Slash began his slow, painful march towards Plant.  
Angered at seeing the clawed Robot Master still alive and functioning after his attack, Plant sent out another attack. This time the cluster slammed into Slash's chest, all centered around his heart, seeking the wildly beating object like bloodhounds. Slash didn't make any notice of pain, no sound, just stopped and glared at Plant. Then he wrapped both hands around the vines and /pulled/, charging at the same time.  
The move surprised Plant and he staggered forward, right into a clawed punch. His face buckled from under the knuckle's impact, claws running through his mechanical brain. From the force of their momentum, Slash jerked his arm out of the follow through, tearing Plant's head off from his neck, flinging the crumpled thing across the lab in a shower of pyrotechnics and blood.  
From there, Slash collapsed to the ground, too weary to do more than lie there, panting, trying to consume all the air his filling lungs would allow.  
Slowly, fighting off the fear, Roll crawled over to his body, afraid that he had already died. "Slash... Slash..." she shook at his shoulder, tears in her large blue eyes. "Ne, ne, Slash... c'mon, get up. Slash...?" The first tear broke over his cheek and she gathered his body in her lap. "Slash..."  
She was surprised when a hand touched her cheek. She looked down to find Slash, trying to smile at her, the oddest look of peacefulness in his eyes.  
"I saved you..." he said, smooth, deep voice transformed into something ragged and distorted. "I finally save you, Sierra..." With a smile filled with relief, he closed his eyes, resting in Roll's arms.  
It only upset her further, the dam breaking and tears streaming down her cheeks. Why? Why was he always so kind to the ghost in his memories? Why was he always so cruel to her, the sister to the bioroid he hated? Why couldn't he look at her, and be even half as sweet, without having to look at her and see someone else?  
"I'm not..." she hiccuped, "I'm not Sierra, Slash. I'm not-not..."  
"Roll..." The voice was so faint she hardly heard it. But Slash was watching her again, gold-brown eyes drowning her in their dying intensity. He tried to pull himself close, tried to say something, but his voice couldn't force the words out.  
All she managed to hear was 'I' before he slipped away, leaving nothing but bloodstains on her dress. 


End file.
